


Purple Fabuloso

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Child Neglect, Hope, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Things Get Better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 21:53:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14986391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Perhaps a part of me I couldn't see at the time wanted them to come home and help me; perhaps there was something left of that desperate little girl who didn't know pain, hunger, soul-deep loneliness, and the feeling of hands where they shouldn't ever be on a child. Maybe just maybe she was screaming and crying and shouting as I waved my parents off with feigned disinterest, perhaps she was screaming " why don't you hear me; why don't you see. I'm broken inside, why don't you care anymore."If she was I couldn't hear her.





	Purple Fabuloso

**Author's Note:**

> This is the extremely condensed version of part of my past. Don't flame, not even sure if I want to post this. Throughout this work, there will be noun inconsistencies. This is because sometimes its easier to put something to paper when you can pretend its not about you. Though make no mistake she, I, and her are all the same person.

 

I remember with extreme clarity the last time I cleaned my room completely. Every article of clothing washed, things I didn't want anyone discovering destroyed or thrown away, laptop history scrubbed. My room smelling of purple fabuloso and bleach. I even painted my window sills.

In the center of it all, on my open laptop, was a carefully considered and painstakingly written suicide note.

I knew my parents would be at bingo out of town until three in the morning. Perhaps a part of me I couldn't see at the time wanted them to come home and help me; perhaps there was something left of that desperate little girl who didn't know pain, hunger, soul-deep loneliness, and the feeling of hands where they shouldn't ever be on a child. Maybe just maybe she was screaming and crying and shouting as I waved my parents off with feigned disinterest, perhaps she was screaming " why don't you hear me; why don't you see. I'm broken inside, why don't you care anymore."

If she was I couldn't hear her.

Although in the coming years I would hear her. I would _be_  that little girl desperately wanting someone to see I was hurting and broken and spitting apart at the seams while everyone around me pretended like the past three years of my life  **didn't happen**.

Unfortunately, at the time, I was deaf to everything. I was like a baby in a sensory deprivation tank. No sight, no sound, no light, no voice. unable to move or change what was happening to me. I ponder often what would have happened if my father had forgotten his wallet, or my mother her bag of trail mix.

Would I be happier, after the fighting and screaming and  ** _whys_**  ended?

( except you know why don't you mom, You know because a broken little girl came to you crying and told you in not so many words I need help mom. My seams are splitting and my glass is cracking and I don't know if I have enough crazy glue, duct tape, and smiles to hold the pieces together anymore. She told you in exactly these words someone hurt me, someone touched me and I'm not ok. What did you do? You called her a liar.)

Would that little part of me finally stop crying?

Some days I think she already has-, some days I look around at the people I have given myself too and the people I have learned how to love. At my sister in all but blood the only soul who knows about my past and my pain. At my 6-years-older-than-me brother whom I had to learn all over again. Looking at my nephew who never really gave me a choice in loving him, who made the dark broken thing inside my soul look up and take notice. After all, it's hard not to take notice when there is this beautiful perfect innocent thing looking at you so trustingly. Looking at you to feed him( because his mother isn't here too) love him(because his mother didn't want to), and in the end, happily let him go back to his mother when she realizes what a gift she has been given.

Yet on my most desolate days when it feels like I am a broken, broken thing made of shards of shattered glass whose hands are jagged and covered in blood. Rough hands, cutting words and silence so loud, that it feels like all I do is hurt everyone around me.

( I once heard a woman say something that at that point in my life connected to me so profoundly I started crying. She said “ If I'm not hurting myself I'm hurting everyone around me, and there's nothing I can do about it.” she said this while crying and choking on her words and I thought to myself I know how you feel and I wonder if I'll ever be so brave as to get the words to pass that immovable barrier in my throat.)

On those days I force myself to get out of bed and pretend to smile for my father's sake. Because god knows,  ** _god knows_**  my father couldn't at the time it was happening, and would never-  _even now_  -be able to deal with the broken thing inside me, deal with thinking he failed his child; because the bitter part of me acknowledges that in some ways he did.

He saw the older daughter who vented every bit of her rage. He saw the daughter who made everyone look up and see her pain and who wore her emotions on her sleeve. He saw the daughter who screams were on the outside. He saw the girl who's broken thing was a part of her, who looked up and screamed to the world with no fear  _look at me can't you see I'm hurting_?

(A little part of me thinks her brave for that.)

He didn't see the selfless, too selfless for her age little girl who kept her pain buried behind smiles and laughs; because that eight-year-old girl didn't want to burden the world. She wanted to protect her father.

( and when that little girl watched her big sister lie on a hospital bed; watching the ventilator force breaths into her sister, she did not cry. She did not cry because everyone else was crying, she did not cry because there was food to fetch, blankets to give to the many family members of her sisters husband who had children, she did not cry because the first thing her father said on day one when the nurse came in and asked " whos this then" her father did not say my youngest daughter; he said" that's my strong on, holds me up more often than not.". There were people to put before her self. So for days, this went on and while she doled out comfort and reassurance, while she gave hugs and kindness to those who needed it no one asked her so much as a "how are you holding up." Until one of her brother in laws sisters, a woman she had met only twice sat next to me in the quiet waiting room I had practically lived in for four days. The room was uncharacteristically empty as the family had left to sleep and feed the kids. That woman sat next to me and said " you know I've seen everyone else breakdown this week. I saw your father yell at the doctor, I saw your mother who could barely look at your sister, I saw your brother break down in hysterical sobs, I saw my brother knell in front of your sister's bed for four hours sobbing and praying. But I don't think I've seen you so much as sneeze. " This woman had seen the facebook posts, she knew about the time I went over to my sisters a three in the morning because she was having a pregnancy craving for cookies only I could make, she knew that I loved my sister desperately. So she said, " How've you been doing mija, you don't look as though you've slept a bit." And I looked at her and said I haven't slept more than two or three hours since they found her." She inhaled, My sister had been found three days prior. I just broke down, I sobbed and cried and wailed like I can't remember ever doing in my like and I clung to this kind woman who just held me and let be cry into her arms as she stroked my hair like I was one of her children. She never mentioned it to anyone and for that I'm grateful. Though she looked surprised that when everyone came back I didn't so much as hint to the fact I had just spent an hour crying. That I simply asked one of her sisters if she needed help with her children and played with them like I was just fine.)

That little girl who was always told by her mother to behave and show restraint and in not so many words everything your brother does is more important. Who heard your brother's problems are more important in dismissals and  _tsks_  when she needed _help_  and she needed a shoulder, and not to sound selfish

( I'm still doing it aren't I)

but honest to god she needed someone to  **look at her** and at the very least ask why are you crying at night, why are there dark circles under your eyes? She needed someone to notice that her nightmares aren't the screaming type, they were the wake up and for a moment- not realize it was a dream-so still she doesn't even breath, and lay there wanting to shake but her fear betrays her and she cant move or breath or scream like that broken thing inside her wants to, because see she was taught consider others before yourself.

She was taught never to be intrusive, she was told if you are loud or interfering or so much as saying a word that should displease me I will yell and scream and maybe if I'm angry enough at the world hurt you. Though never enough to be abuse, never bruises or welts, never cuts or blood, just the marks that fade and words that didn't. Like from her mother in exactly so many words get away from me I never want to see your ugly fucking face again and why are you crying as she yelled loud enough to hurt my ears and close enough to make her tremble. Yet says to the world look how lucky I am to have such a smart beautiful daughter. 

( I will never say I was a perfect child I will never say I did not deserve scolding and punishment on occasion, I'm saying that rarely did the punishment fit the crime. It usually fits how badly the world irritated my mother that day)

 She hears it in her father's sighs when she messed up the littlest bit. She hears your suppose to be the good one your suppose to be the one I don't have to worry about.

(So she was, she made sure to give no reason for anyone to waste time on her petty stupid unimportant problems.)

On those days I stare at the people around me and wonder how they cant hear the broken sobbing thing clawing at my chest wanting to get out and scream her injustice at the world. Yet I smile, a jagged broken ugly thing to me, and I wonder how the world can't see how ugly it is too.

So I swallowed a hand full of blood pressure pills, three sleeping pills and lied down in my soft freshly made, just washed sheets. You can't ( or possibly you can) imagine my horror, disappointment and in all honesty, the barest hint of relief when I woke up nauseated, ran dizzily to the bathroom and purged everything in my stomach.

I was sick for three days and kept my room immaculate for a long time.

So now- though my parents do not and god willing never will realize it- my room reflects my mental state.

I have an overflowing hamper, porn on my web history, and things all over my desk. I don't know if I will ever be able to look at lavender scented cleaning products and feel comfortable. I don't know if I can ever live in a spotless room and not feel the urge to claw at my skin. I don't know if the dark circles that have become a permanent fixture will ever go away. What I do know is that every time I clean nowadays I leave one little thing unperfect. A load of laundry left to do, my rug unvacuumed and I know it drives my mother crazy.

( I also know it drives her crazy that I'm not her perfect little doll anymore. She says staying at my father's ruined me. I say it saved my life. She says she misses the days she dressed me. I say I in no way miss being six and curling my own hair every day so I was allowed to go to school( mind this was when she still acknowledged my existence.) She says she misses the days I wore only dresses. I say that for an eight-year-old Californian girl in 2010 to have never worn a pair of jeans or shorts is unbelievable. She says you don't get a choice on loving your family. I call bs. She says she loves my brother more than me because he loves her more than I do. She said offhandedly once to my sister I don't think she loves me anymore, I think she was joking. She's right.)

So when I know my room isn't perfect? It gives me an unmeasurable amount of peace and calms deep in the dark hidden part of my soul that I shield the people I love from. It's curious how a little thing like that can make all the difference.


End file.
